World No Tobacco Day
A graphic look at global smoking trends

This content was published on May 31, 2018 12:01 AMMay 31, 2018 - 00:01

At the turn of the century, 27% of people smoked around the world; by 2025 this figure should drop to 17%, WHO predicts

(Keystone)

In which countries are people kicking the habit? Are women doing better than men? And what about Switzerland, home to the tobacco industry? Here is a visual summary of the data from a new World Health Organization (WHO) report on smoking trends.

cartogram DW

Smoking map

Since 2000, lighting up has become much less popular. At the turn of the century, almost one in three people smoked (26.9%); by 2025 this figure should drop to 17.3%. But this global decline in smoking hides variations between regions and between the sexes.

Tobacco smoking appears to be decreasing in almost all parts of the world except Africa and the eastern Mediterranean region. Significant progress in controlling tobacco use by both men and women was reported in the Americas, led by countries like Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay and Colombia, but to a lesser extent in the United States, WHO said.

In general, high-income countries are making faster progress than low- and middle-income ones, explained Douglas Bettcher, WHO’s director for the Prevention of Noncommunicable Diseases.

arrow chart DW

chart

Significant numbers of women are kicking the habit, apart from in Europe, while the pace of reduction for men is a “cause for concern”, WHO says. In 2000, the percentage of male smokers worldwide stood at 43% before falling to 34% in 2015, while over the same period the percentage of women smokers fell from 11% to 6%. Scroll over the chart for details.

scatter by gender rate

chart

Despite the overall decline, WHO regrets that only one in eight countries is on track to meet a voluntary target of a 30% cut in tobacco use by 2025, based on a 2010 baseline. It says one of the major factors impeding low- and middle-countries is the tobacco industry with its aggressive promotion of tobacco products, especially to young people, and its ongoing efforts to conceal the dangers of smoking.

In its latest report, the health agency warns that tobacco kills over seven million people a year, and cautions that many people are unaware of the dangers of heart disease and strokes caused by smoking.

The WHO official said the small alpine country was good at monitoring tobacco use and prevention measures. But he described smoke-free policies and tobacco-related advertising bans across the 26-canton state as “very patchy”. He felt the tobacco industry – Philip Morris, British American Tobacco and Japan Tobacco International all have headquarters in Switzerland - had a “very strong” impact on Swiss policy.

There are 3 comments on this article.

Copyright

All rights reserved. The content of the website by swissinfo.ch is copyrighted. It is intended for private use only. Any other use of the website content beyond the use stipulated above, particularly the distribution, modification, transmission, storage and copying requires prior written consent of swissinfo.ch. Should you be interested in any such use of the website content, please contact us via contact@swissinfo.ch.

As regards the use for private purposes, it is only permitted to use a hyperlink to specific content, and to place it on your own website or a website of third parties. The swissinfo.ch website content may only be embedded in an ad-free environment without any modifications. Specifically applying to all software, folders, data and their content provided for download by the swissinfo.ch website, a basic, non-exclusive and non-transferable license is granted that is restricted to the one-time downloading and saving of said data on private devices. All other rights remain the property of swissinfo.ch. In particular, any sale or commercial use of these data is prohibited.